It led to calls for Dutch travel company Abellio to be stripped of the ScotRail franchise by the RMT union who said the situation faced by Scots was "an absolute shambles".

And with ScotRail and RMT offering no hope of an early end to the disruption, it delivers the prospect of chaos overy Christmas.

Most of the disruption that has hit Scots railways has been due to staff shortages, and ScotRail say that is partly because they have been undergoing training too late to be ready for the new winter timetable to be launched.

ScotRail, run by Dutch transport firm Abellio, said that was partly caused by the late arrival of the new Hitachi Class 385 and high-speed InterCity trains.

The train operator run by Dutch transport company Abellio, had said its new electric and high-speed trains including the environmentally friendly Hitachi Class 385 stock would allow shorter journey times, more seats and more services on updated routes to build "the best railway Scotland has ever had".

And Alex Hynes, managing director of the ScotRail Alliance - the partnership between the train operators ScotRail and the railway infrastructure managers Network Rail Scotland - while apologising to customers, warned that while training is still not complete "some disruption will remain".

He said : "We’re sorry to customers for the disruption to services in recent weeks. We know the impact this has on your day, and are working flat out to get things back to normal.

"Training is ongoing so that we can get services back to normal and we can expect an improvement in the coming weeks. But while we continue to train our conductors and drivers some disruption will remain.

"We know this isn’t acceptable, and are sorry to customers about this. Every single person at the ScotRail Alliance is working hard to improve things for our customers as soon as possible."

Services cancelled throughout Monday topped those on Saturday, when there were dozens of cancelled trains, and there were further complaints of overcrowding as train carriages were cut and stop skipping.

The RMT union described the situation facing travellers as "an absolute shambles", saying ScotRail simply did not have enough staff at a time when they needed training to deal with the new trains and timetable - and was relying on members working overtime.

RMT's Scottish organiser Mick Hogg said the industrial action might have been a contributory factor but was not the reason for the disruption and predicted that it would just get worse.

"They simply don't employ enough staff, and rely on existing staff to work overtime. It is an absolute shambles within ScotRail and Abellio should do the right thing and hand the keys back because they are no longer fit to actually run the franchise on Scottish trains.

"They are trying to train staff [on the new timetable] and rely on other staff to do overtime.

"As far as the trade union is concerned we want to see Abellio hand the keys back because they are not fit to actually run a railway. They are an absolute disgrace, with rolling stock not fit for purpose, staff shortages and passengers forced to accept delays and cancellations."

A series of services between Glasgow and Edinburgh which have seen the introduction of the flagship new Class 385 electric trains had to be cancelled due to the staffing issues.

A signalling fault at Perth affected 12 services to Aberdeen and Inverness from Glasgow and Edinburgh and said it acted swiftly to arrange for rail tickets to be valid for Stagecoach bus services.

Travellers gain bombarded ScotRail with complaints through the operator's social media channels.

Someone very high up in @scotrail needs to take responsibility for the chaos that they are causing. This is beyond a joke.

Increasing numbers had already been complaining to ScotRail that any improvements from the timetable were coming at a cost to other travellers with fares increasing by an average of 2.8% next year.

At least one MSP, Mark Ruskell who represents mid-Scotland and Fife is seeking urgent talks with the transport secretary Michael Matheson over what he described as "a major cause for concern" over the timetable.

Rail users complained that there was no consultation over timetable changes and that the first many were aware that the switch was happening was when public meetings were advertised or information was provided by community councils.

Mr Ruskell said serious overcrowding on services between Edinburgh and Dunblane had already led to fainting before the new timetable had even kicked in.

ScotRail had declared its flagship rail link between Edinburgh and Glasgow would see the fastest time cut to just 42 minutes - although on Monday that related to just one of over 170 services running from Glasgow to Edinburgh.

The train firm ordered 46 three-carriage and 24 four-carriage sets of the 385 trains from manufacturer Hitachi as part of its £475m investment in rolling stock and they were due to all be running in the central belt by early next year.

There are now 31 in service with 19 on the Edinburgh to Glasgow route.

At the end of November it emerged that Network Rail Scotland is being probed by the transport regulator as it emerged that it is responsible for two in three of the delays which has seen ScotRail forced to settle 65,000 successful claims from passengers in nine months.

The managers of Scotland's railway infrastructure came under fire after official figures revealed that ScotRail, the operators of the train service, were having to pay out up to 15,683 'delay repay' claims a month over the nine-month period between January and September this year.

The taxpayer will now bear the brunt of the claims estimated by industry figures to come to at least £1m as publicly owned Network Rail is expected to compensate ScotRail for issues they were responsible for.

But the latest wave of disruption have been caused in the main by staff shortages, which are the responsibility of ScotRail, rather than Network Rail. Train maintenance issues which have also caused services to the scrapped, are also ScotRail's responsibility.

@ScotRail 18:17 train from Glasgow central to Edinburgh cancelled again. This is happening way too often! I live in holytown and it’s an hourly service as it is. Can I claim back the cost of a taxi from bellshill train station to holytown? Or have I to wait in Glasgow to 19:16?

@ScotRail I thought you had promised to not allow trains to skip stops any more, yet the 1745 from Waverley to Glasgow QS is slipping due to a crew shortage. Pathetic reason. If there aren't enough crew, how can you run the train at all? If there are, why skip?

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